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Allen Jones RA

Allen Jones RA

Allen Jones studied at Hornsey College of Art from 1955 to 1959 and the Royal College of Art from 1959 to 1960. Between 1961 and 1983 he taught at Croydon College of Art, Chelsea School of Art, University of South Florida, Hochschule für Bildenden Kunst, Hamburg, University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, Irvine and Hochschule der Kunste, Berlin. Jones was appointed a Trustee of the British Museum from 1990 to 1999.

From the early 1960s his international reputation was established as a painter, printmaker and sculptor. Over the past 40 years his work has been exhibited around the world in both solo and group exhibitions. There have been three major retrospectives of his work. The first at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, travelling to the Serpentine Gallery, London and to four venues in Germany. The second at the ICA, London, which travelled to the Fruit Market, Edinburgh and Arnolfini, Bristol, and the third at the Barbican, London, which was subsequently toured worldwide by the British Council.

Jones’s designs for stage and television include Oh Calcutta! for Kenneth Tynan, Manner wir kommen (West Deutsche Rundfunk), Understanding Opera (LWT), Satie/Cinema (Baallet Rambert) and Signed in Red (Royal Ballet, London). Jones lives and works in London and Oxfordshire.

A major retrospective will take place at the Royal Academy from 13 November 2014 — 25 January 2015. Find out more here.

Profile

Born: 1 September 1937

Elected ARA: 7 May 1981

Elected RA: 20 November 1986

Royal Academician

Engravers, Printmakers and Draughtsmen

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My studio life

A place in the country.

“My Oxfordshire studio was designed by a good friend of mine, the architect Piers Gough, who coincidentally is a fellow Royal Academician. In order to get planning permission, the building had to look like a barn so that it fitted in with the local environment”.

Vantage point.

“Having this north-facing window very high up provides a good light for painting. In those days the land surrounding us was just open sheep meadows, so I thought I’d best take advantage of the view. That’s why the platform is up there, notionally for meditation and for the odd cup of tea”.

Keeping the light in.

“It turns out it’s very hard to design a curtain for a triangular window. These are sails: a guy came from a shipyard where they build yachts, and he abseiled up there to fix all the hooks. The sheeting is totally opaque. We’re in the countryside so it’s nice not to be shedding a huge amount of light into the environment”.

What happens in the studio.

“Painting. Even the sculptures, which are made somewhere else, come to me for painting. That’s what I am anyway, really – a painter. A painter who sculpts.”.

Material challenges.

“That wood sculpture occupies the size of a reasonable wardrobe, and the wood can’t go out of doors. It was very labour intensive to make that, with all the curving surfaces. I pretty quickly graduated to using steel or fibreglass – it’s easier to make the forms, and if they can go out of doors it increases the amount of people who might be able to own one!”.

From painting to sculpture.

“I spent a lot of the ‘60s developing a very stylised, very volumetric language for describing the figure in paint. Then I thought, if I’m trying to make it look three-dimensional, why not just make it three-dimensional? That produced the furniture sculptures, and after that the implications took off in several directions”.

Storyboards.

“When I’m drawing, I tend to rule out a set of rectangles in the proportions I’ve chosen to work on. It means I can play with an idea and develop it. Sometimes they get worked up and become interesting little drawings, but remain illustrations and never become a painting. If one of them has ever become a painting, you can tell because I’ve squared it up (in a grid) in order to enlarge it”.

Tools of the trade.

“I heard a long time ago that Cezanne had something like 30 different greens on his palette. Nothing is new…. I don’t have 30 greens but I’m up in the 20s on some of the colours”.

Brushwork.

So many people think that I use an airbrush, but no – if you’ve been doing it long enough it’s just about having the right variety of brushes. I’ve been using this one for years. I don’t have an assistant… The only reason I can see for having an assistant is that it would be nice to have someone clean your brushes! It just is such a drag".

Video

An interview with Allen Jones RA

Ahead of a major survey of his work at the Royal Academy of Arts, we join the artist in his studio to discuss how British Pop Art emerged in the 1950s, how he became obsessed with the female figure – and how one iconic portrait came about.

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Burlington Gardens site

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